Jack lowered the gun and everyone started to breathe again. “This isn’t how we operate. Not ever. No matter how many of us they kill, we don’t turn into monsters.”
Trash looked like he could puke bullets, but he didn’t test Jack’s threat, and it was the right decision. Jack wasn’t bluffing. He’d remembered what he stood for, and he would’ve shot Trash dead.
“So what now? We just bend over and take it? Watch them wipe out the last of us?”
Jack still had the gun in hand, and it felt heavier than he remembered. “No. We fight and survive, but we do it right. Military targets and infrastructure only. I’d rather die by my virtues than live like this.”
Chapter 37:
Detachment
The moment was over, and everything was calm again in the circular generator room. Trash had a twisted grimace on his face, but he dutifully zipped his pack up and slung it back over his shoulder. The insurrection was over.
Jack returned his handgun to its holster. At the same moment, the light in the generator room turned a deep, Cabernet red while the innermost ring of columns slid across the floor, forming a gapless barricade around the miniature sun. A low cry like a giant horn howled across the blue city. None of that seemed like good news.
“What’s going on?” the demoman asked.
Jack’s voice had an edge as sharp as a knife. “We’ve been found out.” He’d followed his conscience, and his luck immediately turned to crap. He didn’t know what message the universe was trying to send him, but he sure he didn’t like it.
Jack rushed back out the entry tunnel and the rest of the team followed. He stopped at the cliff, and when he looked out over the city, he could already see the enemy on their way. Swarms of flyers cut through the air traffic, heading straight for them. All the while, the howl of the giant horn never stopped or faltered.
“What do we do?” Trash asked.
There were too many unknowns, and Jack did his best to process them. He could lay a trap with the explosives and try a pitched battle in the generator room, but there was no way to escape. The enemy outnumbered them by the millions, and would wear them down eventually. It might give Charlie and the others a chance to clear out, though.
The closest flyer was still more than a minute away. “We run. Everybody, back down the wall.”
The team didn’t need to be told twice. Each of them drew their rappelling hooks, latched onto a handle, and dropped over the edge feet first. Their arrestors whined, and with each stop, the team grabbed new handholds, retracted cable and reattached, only to repeat the process again and again.
By the time they reached the bottom, flyers were circling the generator room above and were starting to search in widening circles.
Charlie came out of the shadows with Nikitin and the others in tow. “What the hell did you do up there?”
“Not sure,” Jack said, “but they’re on to us.”
“Ya think?” Nikitin spat sarcastically. “So what now?”
Jack had come to a decision during the trip down, one he didn’t particularly like, but it was better than the alternatives. It was a bad plan, but it would get his people out, and that was the only thing that mattered. “Trash, I need your det packs,” he said.
“Why?”
“Shut up and hand ‘em over.”
Trash dug the pale bricks and detonators out of his pack and tossed them to Jack, who stowed them away. “Put on the robes and stay hidden until you hear the first of these go off. Charlie, you take everyone back out the way we came. Meet up with the others at the rendezvous and just keep going.”
“What about you?”
“I’m gonna raise a ruckus.”
Charlie got in his face. “Don’t be stupid, Jack. We’re all leaving. Just need to be sneaky about it.”
“That ship sailed, and you know it. They won’t stop searching until they find someone, and if they don’t find anyone here, they’ll start looking outside and we’re all fucked. This way, you all at least have a chance. Now follow my damn orders.”
“Yeah, and no one’s going to notice there’s only seven of us?”
“Who can count with bombs going off?”
Jack was ready to punch his little brother in the mouth, but it didn’t come to that. Charlie nodded his head solemnly and started handing out the robes. “You heard the man. Put ‘em on.”
When Jack turned to Albright, she unshouldered her rifle. The doctor was a five-foot commando again. “I’m with you.”
Jack walked over to her, took her in his arms and kissed her. Every inch of her was tense, but she melted and then it seemed to last forever. Jack pulled away, and said, “Like hell you are.”
“But I…”
“They need you, Lisa. And I need you to survive. It’s what I do.”
She was stunned, but Jack wouldn’t budge on this. He could sacrifice his own life if he had to, but not hers. Not now.
He gave her one more gentle kiss on the forehead and said, “I’ll see you again. I promise.”
And he was gone before she could say another word. Jack ran hard, his feet pounding tiled floor, and the taste of her still on his lips. He flew out from their hiding spot and circled the generator tower; when he was ninety degrees around the bend, he turned and bolted off into parts unknown.
Jack came to his first stop fifty meters on. He pulled a putty-like demo pack out and attached it to a shack, then jammed a detonator inside. He set the timer for ten minutes, set his watch-alarm for nine-forty-five, and bolted off running again.
He hit a residential sector, pulled the rifle from his back and started to yell. Crowds of aliens ran away in terror, like a tiger had escaped from the zoo and was rampaging through the streets.
“Get down!” he yelled as he began to fire. He aimed high to avoid the bystanders, and his rounds sparked impotently off the stalagmite buildings. The loud bark of fire had the desired effect, sending the innocents scattering, and he continued running right on past.
He didn’t bother to look over his shoulder. There was no need. The cyclic sound of the flyers overhead was enough to let him know he had their attention. Another few paces on, he heard soldier rhinos grunting and galloping, and he knew the ground forces were onto him as well.
The residential area gave way to a market, and Jack’s howling madman routine turned heads wherever he went. Crowds parted before him like the sea before Moses, and he sprinted on, driven by an endless surge of adrenaline.
Jack decided to explore a bit. He cut between two buildings and loped up a ramp to the suspended catwalks. It was a whole new part of the city made of branching beams, with its own set of store fronts and signs scrawled in unfamiliar characters. Yet more levels waited above.
Then the game got interesting. This level was too tight for flyers, and they stayed high up above, but now every corner held a set of rhinos stampeding in his direction. Escape routes closed off all around.
Jack heard a skittering noise behind him and instinctively hit the deck just in time for a jackrabbit to go flying overhead. The small creature yelped when it missed him, and clawed at the floor as it slid away.
He turned his head back and saw two more of the fast creatures bounding his way. Both leaped into the air at the same time, and with a spin, he dodged one and flung the other off the catwalk onto the ground floor below.
“Toro!” He shouted, before sprinting off once again.
Option after option disappeared, forcing his choices until he found himself on a long bridge with no offramps, and nothing nearby but empty air. Enemy forces moved into position on either end. They’d snared him.
He fired a couple rounds toward the far end as a warning, and the enemy ducked back. Then he turned and opened fired on his pursuers, sending them scattering. He stopped when the magazine ran dry.